Thursday, September 25, 2014

wiggles/walks

I have gotten into the habit of going on a walk in the park the minute I wake up. I started walking to get my wiggles out. Listen, I have a lot of wiggles in the morning even before my coffee. Listen, I can be a 30-year-old and still use the word "wiggles," okay? Listen to the rhythm of the falling rain. Telling me just what a fool I've been. I wish that it would go and let me cry in vain. And let me be alone again. Those last four sentences were song lyrics not written by me. Name the song and the group and I will give you the prize of immortal life.

Anyway, my walk. So I walk around the park by my house while reading The New York Times and War and Peace because I am pretentious like that. I initially start out welcoming the world. The sun! The breeze! The trees! The new day! Hello! And then people happen. Yes, Camus, hell is other people. Granted, I am the other for others -- in other words, I am no peach pie for some folk. I disrupt their world just as much as they disrupt mine. Okay, I am being a tad hyper-sensitive, I know. Most of the time people at the park are just minding their own business. Walking their dog (but does their dog really have to poop in my path?), getting their daily exercise (but do you have to run with your stroller the size of a mid-size SUV?), catching up with their friend (but do you really have to have such an idiotic conversation about your juice cleanse?), and so on. Occasionally some gem-of-a-human will drive by me in their pick-up truck equipped with a Duck Dynasty bumper sticker and gun rack in the back and honk and/or shout incoherently out their window and/or politely ask for my opinion on Tolstoy's Christian anarchist views. Well, maybe not the last one. But the first two? They happen far more often than they should. They should never happen, actually. And it pisses me off. And it also scares me a little. It may seem odd, but being harassed first thing in the morning isn't exactly my favorite way to start the day.

So I come home from my walk, which was supposed to relax and refresh me, but instead I grab a large cup of ice and chew away my anxiety and anger. Something has to change and I hate to say that it's most likely my attitude that needs an adjustment. Yes, it would be nice if the harassment stopped, but it won't. Yeah, if the dog poop and the stroller moms and the mind-numbing conversations I can't help but overhear would disappear life might be easier. But then it wouldn't be life, right? Life comes with annoyances, interruptions, and too many wiggles to successfully erase. It's learning how to handle these situations in a way that doesn't add fuel to the asshole fire. It's learning how to send out good vibes for the sake of the world and, maybe more importantly, the sake of your psyche. Hell may be other people, but I can create heaven within myself.

IN THE NAME OF COFFEE AND TOLSTOY AND CUPS OF ICE, A(WO)MEN.

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